2011 Was Crazy: The year's 10 most ridiculous moments in sports, in no particular order

2011's top 10 events in sports.

When the first NCAA tournament brackets to ever feature 68 teams rolled out of office-owned printers across the country, no one looked at Virginia Commonwealth University's slot in a play-in game and thought, "Oh, they'll totally make it to the Final Four." But somehow, this little-known team made it all the way there... and made it one of the most memorable college basketball seasons in recent memory.

Joe Pa... yeah you're old as hell, but come on!

Nothing was more ridiculous or disgusting as the details that continue to come out of State College, Penn., which was once known as home to Penn State, but will forever be associated with one of the most shocking moments in sports history.

It's pronounced Or-uh-gun

The year began with promise for Northwest sports fans who saw the Oregon Ducks play for the BCS championship, only to get steamrolled by Cam Newton and the Auburn Tigers during a game that was a lot closer than any Auburn fan would have expected.

... and he's white!

No one scored the basketball with such frequency and ridiculousness as BYU's Jimmer Fredette, who had no problem with pulling up somewhere outside of Salt Lake City to deposit bombs all the way to Provo. Sorry if that Utah geography isn't making sense to you. The real Jimmer fans got it just fine though - and they're still pissed the Jazz couldn't get this kookily named gent on their squad.

When down and out, start punching people

No sports dynasty ever went down in such a ridiculous ball of shame as the Los Angeles Lakers did when they were ousted from the playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks. When it was clear they'd lose in the final game, the players just started clothes-lining people. Keep it classy, Lakers.

Millionaires vs. Billionaires

Owners and players of the NBA and the NFL apparently haven't looked out the windows of their vacuum-sealed mansions and noticed that things aren't that great for everyday folks out there. This is why both leagues decided to bitch about who makes more money for months on end. The NFL got their act together just in time while the NBA showed up later than your stoner brother's birthday card.

Somewhere George W. Bush was crying

Because for the second year in a row, the Texas Rangers lost in the World Series. No one seemed to feel too bad for them either.

If only it were always this exciting...

Baseball isn't for everyone, especially not the iPhone-accelerated attention spans that the modern human being is saddled with, but if you were paying attention to Major League Baseball on September 28 of this year, you'd have to be Boris B. Boringstein to not find yourself excited by the drama going down in the American League East. Well, unless you're a Red Sox fan. In that case, you probably deleted this day from your memory with a few deliberate shots of Jameson (that's what you Bostonians drink, right?) to the head.

This guy hates gravity!

A Blake Griffin dunk is more majestic than the birth of anyone's first child. And don't argue with me on that. He once dunked over a car, just because. How many cars has your baby dunked over? Damn. If Blake Griffin wanted to dunk on me, I'd totally let him. And that's not the same thing I told Shawn Kemp back in the day.

He's just a quarterback... jeez.

Near the end of 2011 something truly ridiculous happened over at ESPN. Rather than remain the bastion of sports-reporting excellence they've been for three decades now, ESPN decided to replace roughly 40 percent of its nouns with the word "Tebow." People started hating this cheeky "Tebow" character and it wasn't his fault. All he was doing was winning games and talking about Jesus, but ESPN made him into the most polarizing figure in sports. Ridiculous.